We ran a story the other day regarding the future patches for IRIX that would only be available via special contracts. SGI sent OSNews the following statement regarding the patches/maintance releases and feature streams (==updates that include new features) for IRIX 6.5.

"SGI employs a release stream model for IRIX 6.5 that allows users to receive continuous upgrades without disruption to their operating environments. The IRIX 6.5 maintenance release stream contains bug fixes and new hardware support with guaranteed forward and backward compatibility with other IRIX 6.5m releases. The IRIX 6.5 feature release stream contains the absolute latest feature developments as soon as they become available. Both the maintenance and feature streams are released on a regular, quarterly basis. Over time, selected features from the IRIX 6.5 feature release stream may be migrated into the maintenance release stream, provided this can be done without any threat to binary compatibility. -- SGI"